


Day Nine: Dark Woods/Lost

by Euphorion



Series: Writober [9]
Category: Haikyuu!!, Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Ghosts, M/M, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 22:36:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8262923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euphorion/pseuds/Euphorion
Summary: Kenma stared at his ceiling. The house was silent around him, but he couldn’t sleep—he thought even without the extra-territorial feline part of his brain he would know that there were strangers in his house. Though between their late-night conversation at the diner and whatever shared power they had, stranger didn’t exactly feel like the right word.
+Not much to say about this one! Just a lil Kenma character study...





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a pretty direct sequel to my [very first writober fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8182562). You may also want to read [my second one,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8194627) though it's not really necessary.

Kenma stared at his ceiling. The house was silent around him, but he couldn’t sleep—he thought even without the extra-territorial feline part of his brain he would know that there were strangers in his house. Though between their late-night conversation at the diner and whatever shared power they had, _stranger_ didn’t exactly feel like the right word.

He sat up and then continued the motion, curling forward over the edge of his bed. By the time his hands hit the floor they were paws. He shrugged himself into his new form, feeling it settle along him like a close-fitting dress, velvet-soft, all his power centered in his hips and his shoulders. That’s the thing, with cats—they’re all shoulder, all pivot, all sway.

Kenma liked wearing dresses as much as any other human clothing, but he liked wearing this more. It was a few quick, padding steps across the floor to the window, an effortless leap to its ledge, and then he was picking his way across the narrow ledge between rooms. It was like walking on a tightrope with a perfect inner ear—he could, of course, fall, but the slightest change in angle was a direct signal to his muscles, corrected before it was even registered by the human part of his mind.

He slipped in through his brother’s bedroom window, left wide open, and bounded up on top of the headboard.

Bokuto and Akaashi were sleeping in the small bed, careless and comfortable. Bokuto looked almost like he’d retained some of his owl form—perhaps too exhausted to bother completing his transition after they flew in the window. There was something owlish in the cast of his face, impossible to tell in the darkness if his odd hair was fully hair or if it was still threaded through with feathers.

He had an arm around Akaashi’s shoulders, pulling him against his side. Akaashi’s own arm arm flung across him, his head pressed hard to Bokuto’s chest like he was seeking out his heartbeat. Tangled up, their corners and hollows fitted tight together, they looked natural. There was none of the slight hesitance and bashfulness Kenma had seen at the diner. They looked _used_ to this.

Most human emotions were not naturally experienced by his animal form, Kenma found. But envy was an entirely feline experience. 

He stretched, sinking his claws into the headboard, then angrily washed a paw, using it to clean his whiskers as if he could scrub away his irritation. Then, resisting the urge to meow loudly and wake them up, he slipped out the window again and trotted into the woods.

The moon was setting, the night slipping calmly into day. Even the rats and voles and insects that usually distracted his predator nose seemed to be docile; Kenma hissed his displeasure at the first sleepy bird he saw but it only eyed him nervously, far too high above for him to hope for any catch. He hadn’t quite crossed that line, anyway. Circle of nature or not, taking a life was still taking a life, and, hell. He was just a high school kid.

He was about to turn around and give up, go back to bed and try to sleep, when he saw something moving through the woods.

A ripple of terror ran down his spine, pulling his back into a high, protective arch. He couldn’t smell it. He couldn’t smell it, but it was there—pale, almost real, shot-through with ice-blue veins. As Kenma watched the blue settled into the figure’s hair and eyes, and skin reasserted itself over the glass frame he’d first seen. His cat-self cowered from this strange, scentless _thing_ , but Kenma just saw a boy—about his age, with delicate features, his hands in his pockets. He was walking purposefully through the woods, his feet making no sound despite the thick layer of pine needles and autumn leaves. 

As if suddenly aware of being observed, he stopped and looked around. Catching sight of Kenma, he smiled softly.

 _Run_ , said his cat mind, unable to deal with the impossible. But Kenma was getting quite used to wrapping his mind around impossible things.

The boy approached him and leaned down. Fascinated, Kenma leaned up to pretend to sniff at his hand. It was like putting his nose to slightly cool, very soft, very clean metal. The boy pet him for a moment, his smile growing. “I always heard cats could see ghosts,” he said, in a voice that arrived in Kenma’s head without ever passing through his ears. “I never really thought about whether it would be true.”

Kenma chirped at him, and the boy touched him on the nose with a fingertip. “Wish me luck, kitty,” he said, and continued on his way.

Kenma watched him go. The sky was lightening, and he could see the first pink clouds of dawn through the boy’s head.

He thought about returning to his bed. About curling up alone and human, the great vast skies of mortality now opened up to bear down on him, a puzzle he and everyone else had discarded to which now he had a new piece. He thought about the weight of that, the possible overwhelming in a way that the impossible had not been.

He stayed a cat, slipping through the woods almost as silently as the ghost had. 

Kuroo’s window was always open for him these days. He leapt up into it, careful to clean his paws before dropping down to Kuroo’s carpet and making his way across to his bed. Kuroo’s room was messy enough, it didn’t need any help from him.

Kuroo slept splayed out wide, his long limbs akimbo, his mouth a little bit open. His hair was a sideways tangle, his loose shirt rucked halfway up his pale, lean stomach. Kenma resisted the urge to nose up under it and press himself against Kuroo’s side; instead, he curled up on his pillow, head pillowed on his paws, and watched him.

Maybe Kuroo’s panther sense, like his, never really left him in sleep. Or maybe he felt Kenma’s weight on his pillow. Either way, after a moment he cracked a bleary eye. His suspicious look vanished when he saw Kenma, replaced with a sleepy smile, and he turned over on his side, running two fingers up Kenma’s nose and over the crown of his head to scratch at his ears. “Hi, Kitten.”

Kenma nuzzled his palm. His real, human touch soothed him—banished the remaining unsettlement of his fur that the ghost’s hand had left behind. Kuroo’s eyes were closed again, his hand running down Kenma’s spine absently, and Kenma let his own slip shut. He didn’t have to be human, with all its certainties and its questions. He could just be—here.

Warm and purring, Kenma slept.

**Author's Note:**

> Cheated a little with this one - the woods aren't really DARK, and Kenma's not lost (nor is Kuroko??) but. Hopefully you will forgive me


End file.
